35 Years Of Not Playing Well With Others

No matter what you may think of Sen. Hillary Clinton, she has a plan for everything, and enough tenacity to ride whatever lightning is thrown at her. Much has been made of her as a “fighter”, indicating that she’ll do whatever it takes to accomplish her goals.

Fighting is an important trait, and one that has served both Sen. Clinton and her husband well over the years. It is certainly a quality I want in a President of the United States. However, politics is much more complicated than just a bare-knuckle fight. Politics is the very best – and the very worst – of this country. To be a successful national politician in the United States, you have to have the iron fist – elegantly concealed in a velvet glove. Sen. Clinton is known for her iron fist. However, does she have the détente to be able to work with Congress?

No President can be effective without the ability to work with Congress. The two best modern examples to support this are Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan. They often talked tough about Congress to the press. However, they told Congressmen the truth individually, and had a warm personal touch that often helped them overcome practical opposition to their plans. They knew how to negotiate, how to cajole, how to plead with the better angels of a legislator’s nature (which is no small feat). But even more important than knowing how to do those things, they knew WHEN to do them too.

Reviewing Sen. Clinton’s eight years in elected office, it is troubling to note that she has not co-authored a single major piece of legislation that was signed into law. Even her rival for the Democratic Presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama, can claim bipartisan co-authorship on two major bills that were enacted into law (Lugar-Obama and Coburn-Obama) during his time in Washington – and he’s been in the Senate half as long as Sen. Clinton. This at least demonstrates some ability to reach across the political aisle to get important legislation through Congress.

The only other legislative experience Clinton can claim is the 1993-94 effort to bring about universal health care reform, when she was First Lady. Even in this, though, there was a major problem with Sen. Clinton’s ham-handed administrative style. Far from focusing on positive, collegial communication, she took her task force private, issued thinly veiled threats to anyone seeming to oppose her, and ended up offending even major Congressional Democrats such as Sen. Daniel Moynihan. As a result, her plan – and her reputation – took the fall.

One could easily, and rationally, assert that this combativeness is natural for someone who has been subjected to intense scrutiny, both personally and professionally, throughout her adult life. Were that all there was to tell, that explanation would be the end of this story.

Unfortunately, there’s more to this than just overdeveloped combat instincts. As her biographer, Carl Bernstein, has noted, Sen. Clinton appears to have “a difficult relationship with the truth.” A brief look at some of her foreign policy experience claims underscores both her lack of front-line experience and the “difficult relationship”.

Sen. Clinton says she “helped bring peace to Northern Ireland.” Unfortunately, Lord Trimble, Nobel Peace Prize winner for his role in the Belfast agreement, has characterized this claim as “a wee bit silly.” Brian Feeney, also heavily involved in the negotiations, is even more direct: “The road to peace was carefully documented, and she isn’t on it.”

She says she helped negotiate for open borders for Macedonians. The truth is that those borders were opened the day before she arrived in the area.

Her campaign says her trip to Tuzla was the first time any First Lady has been in a “war zone” since the FDR administration. However, Pat Nixon went to Vietnam – in 1968. That was an actual war zone. In contrast, Sen. Clinton took her daughter along for the trip – and video shows they were flanked by Bosnian children as she made her way from the plane.

Oh yes…the dangerous circumstances she cites in the landing? The pilot of the plane says that there weren’t as much as bees, much less sniper fire. He goes further to say that, far from the “corkscrew landing” Sen. Clinton described, the only reason the flight came in on a steeper than normal approach was due to the hilly terrain, not avoiding anti-aircraft ammunition.

In all of these claims, one can see the kernel of truth around which the larger fabrication was spun. She WAS involved in bringing women’s groups into the Northern Ireland peace process. She WAS involved in the effort to keep borders open for Macedonian refugees. She WAS briefed on the possibility of danger in Tuzla prior to landing. None of this, though, excuses the conflations. As Ron Fournier plaintively asks, “Why wasn’t the truth good enough for Hillary Clinton?”

Okay, so she’s a politician who fights and embellishes. The sad truth is that, to become president, you have to project righteousness while quietly working within the political labyrinth of the Beltway. No modern President gets into office without some mud on their shoes. As long as it isn’t illegal, it’s fair game. So, Sen. Clinton’s “fish stories” aren’t a big deal, right?

Well, if you want to enact a four-part housing relief measure that is estimated to cost in the neighborhood of $30 billion, you’d better be able to not only honestly account for the money and processes, you’d also better be able to TALK (not just fight) with Congressional heavies, both GOP and Democrat. If you want to start bringing troops home from Iraq within your first 100 days in office, you’d better line up Congressional backing. If you want to create “green” jobs, you’d better be able to get the Congressional delegations from auto-producing and heavy industrial states on board with you, because you’ll need them to explain to their electorates what’s happening. If you want to cap health care premiums at 10% of income, you’d better be more convincing than the health care lobbyists who will oppose your plan to your legislative constituency.

Historically, the Clintons have never had good relations with Capitol Hill. Their coattails have never been long, which no lawmaker likes. Democrats took a beating in the 1994 mid-term elections, largely due to national irritation with President Clinton’s moral compass and Sen. Clinton’s unfriendly nature during the health care efforts. It took 12 years – until the political malfeasance that is George W. Bush – for Democrats to recover. Al Gore’s Presidential campaign in 2000 got less White House support than Sen. Clinton’s first run for the Senate that same year. There are Democrats who remember that lack of support with more than just a slight moue of distaste.

Given all these factors, President Hillary Clinton would probably require a supermajority in both houses of Congress just to avoid filibusters. This, unfortunately, is very unlikely, even in a year where Republicans are jumping ship and Democrats are poised to add to their majorities.

Hillary Clinton is a unique figure in American political history – First Lady, U.S. Senator, and the first viable female candidate for President. She is highly intelligent, organized, and determined. Her true, unvarnished record would indicate she doesn’t have a lot of direct experience, but her exposure to and intimacy with national and international concerns would be great for her in the White House. Certainly, she’s given a lot of thought to her plans, especially for the economic crises we face. That deserves credit and recognition.

However, no great Presidential plans can pass without Congressional support. Sen. Clinton’s record on securing bipartisan legislative cooperation indicates that there isn’t much more than fighting and embellishing in her playbook. For all her wonkishness, she lacks a simple precept, espoused on millions of kindergarten report cards every year: “Works and plays well with others.” And a President who can’t be straight with legislators, is unwilling to compromise, and is secretive even with those of the same party will just not work in Washington – especially if one wants to implement the plans she has put together.